Nightingale
by elveljung
Summary: An exercise in ConradWolfram.


**Nightingale**

Everyone knows. Except possibly for the happily oblivious Yuuri, there is not a one who has not heard the whispers, caught the glances, observed the painful, disjointed dancing around the truth.

It's not a state of affairs that's appreciated, but it has won reluctant acceptance as inevitable. Especially now, when it's wrapped so tightly in repressal and denial that the ugly emotion only seldom manages to raise its head and glare.

They all turned a blind eye when, a sun-drenched day years ago, Conrad and Wolfram kissed on the courtyard.

They all turned a blind eye when, a windy day years ago, Conrad and Wolfram fought on the courtyard.

Now nothing of the sort happens, and the relief is mixed with a vague, reluctant sensation of gloom.

Once, many many years ago, there was a boy as lonely as he was sweet. The insight had come to him gradually, but recently it had solidified, that he was not quite part of the world he inhabited. There was never the need to tell him about his filthy blood; he was a good and clever child and has figured it out for himself long before anyone thought to enlighten him of the unpleasant facts. By the time that they felt the need to have a Talk, it was apparent that he already knew.

He preferred not to think about himself as bitter. There was relatively little reason for that, after all. He might be half human but he was not scorned, and though he knew well and good the hateful dirtiness of humanity, his father was not like that, nor treated as though he were.

Dan Hiri Weller was a good man, a fact that his son has never heard anyone, human or demon, argue.

He was great enough to put up a tiny bridge between the two kinds, to fight with honor, to love Celi and all her kin.

He also left her bitterly alone, her and her children. He was a wanderer, and though his son was sometimes allowed to come along, Conrad was never his destination.

Suddenly one day a new player entered the stage, once quite thoroughly different from friendly but not really close Yozak and loving but absent parents and sternly proud Gwendal. Wolfram had nothing to do with bleak acceptance – he's _there_ as intensely and irrevocably and treasured as sunlight, and he loves like sunlight too, unchecked and burningly bright and necessary for life.

_Wolfram loves him best of all._

The knowledge is more triumphant than it rightly ought to be, and Conrad's almost sure he doesn't mind the certainty that the feeling is mutual.

They are always together. They eat together, sleep together, bath and play and train together. Ever since Wolfram was born, practically into Conrad's arms, such has been the case. Celi has become different in Conrad's perception after the idea of her as the dignified queen and loving wife was paired with the image of her swollen and swearing in labor; he loves her no less, but differently.

Most particularly he and Wolfram both are primarily connected to each other. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Celi is a less than adept maternal figure. She loves, certainly, but not in an uncomplicated or stabile fashion. Instead her two youngest children turn to one another – Conrad for all practical purposes raises Wolfram, showers him with unconditional love. The half-blood is loved in return as he has never been before, wildly and unquestioningly, and suddenly his life has a purpose, suddenly it _is_ a life.

Wolfram drapes his presence over Conrad's existence like a thick layer of sun-warm honey, golden and sweet and hot, drapes his person over Conrad's, snuggly and demanding and vivid.

The blond is not everything Conrad has, but without Wolfram the rest is meaningless.

Conrad never notices girls. He starts noticing special things about Wolfram instead; he never really had an Oedipus complex, but he develops a grandfather of brother complex instead.

Wolfram is used to them curling up together in either one's bed and certainly doesn't object to Conrad holding him, nuzzling his hair, stroking his arms and back. Indeed, he'd probably be very upset if his brother failed to complete the ritual that normally ends with Wolfram burying his face against Conrad's shoulder, the sharp tip of his nose poking a the brunette's neck.

Step by step Conrad grows more immersed in touching his little blond brother.

He's familiar long since with every part of Wolfram – gods, he's even changed his diapers, has had him in his lap during countless dinners of spoon-feeding. Which makes his longing urge now even sicker. He shouldn't but he does let his hands glide over the blond's sides, over ticklish ribs, softer stomach, sharp hips, bony thighs.

Green eyes blink open, causing Conrad to draw in a sharp breath of what he tells himself is guilt and not arousal, but Wolfram just sighs sleepily and twists around to give him fuller access. The message is clear – if Conrad wants to be close, far be it from Wolfram to complain.

One evening, when Wolfram is not a child but not _not_ a child either, they kiss. It's hesitant and awkward and honey again, warm and sweet and flowing. There have been thousands of kisses given and received before, on cheeks and heads and even sometimes lips, and so it's not all that strange for Conrad to bend over now, and lay his mouth over Wolfram's with possibly a little more pressure than previously. When the blond smiles against his mouth, said blond's lips inch open, and Conrad doesn't resist, he neither can nor wants to resist, and the kiss deepens and deepens, he's drowning in the honey and sunlight.

Warm and snuggly Wolfram wraps himself tightly around Conrad, and neither of them speaks. The brunette thinks that this is to take advantage, of course his little brother doesn't understand the implications, grown up as he has with Celi who loves left and right and acts rather inappropriately towards her sons.

_"It's natural and all fine to be close to someone you care for"_ – and they do care for each other, the brothers, just…

Is it that simple?

Conrad would never touch Celi this way, or Gwendal, or anyone else. This is Wolfram's only. _He_ wants to be only Wolfram's, and somewhere close to that wish lies the desire to be Wolfram's only.

He is. There's more than one raised eyebrow, but as they grow up they don't grow apart. No one says anything though, for it's easiest that way, and so in a matter of weeks the love is consummated, Wolfram panting and trashing beneath him as Conrad screams out his love.

Finally, one day when the war is brewing, it becomes official though still ignored when Wolfram kisses him right on the courtyard, before the brunette rides off to handle a sacked village. It's gorgeous and burning and satisfaction to lock lips with Wolfram in front of others, to have them _know_.

Off he goes, then, and the remnants of the village have him swallowing dryly and panicked, trying to keep down vomit; he's seen more than most noble heirs, on the travels with his father, but not like this and not so close to home.

He returns to a Blood Pledge Castle suddenly grim, tense with anticipation of the inevitable war. Still, Wolfram and sunlight and honey are there, so it's all right.

Then one day, when Conrad's gone again for another investigation, Yozak and Wolfram run into each other. They never have liked one another, but have put up with the other's presence for the brunette's sake; Wolfram considers Yozak a filthy half-breed unworthy of his brother, and Yozak thinks of Wolfram as a spoiled brat undeserving of his friend.

Yozak's lonely too, and where Wolfram seems to have the love of family and country, the half-human has nothing, and Conrad is his only friend.

He deliberately doesn't pay his proper respects, and the young aristocrat fixes a haughtily disapproving gaze on him. "Move aside," the blond orders.

"What's that?" Yozak says stupidly, he shouldn't bait von Bielefeld like this, but the need to burns in him, the need to not be suffering alone anymore.

"Get out of my way, human!"

The outburst startles Wolfram more than it does Yozak; to the blond, _human_ has become the ultimate insult, the filthy and evil things burning their land and murdering their subjects.

"But you've seemed so fond of humans lately," Yozak says with a venomously velvety voice. "You have human seed in you, you know."

"My father was a demon!" Wolfram yells at him.

"True," Yozak says, noting with distant regret the surprised relief in the green eyes. "But Conrad's wasn't. You're dear brother's a half-breed, just like me."

"You're lying," Wolfram says, incredulous and insulted. "You're lying!"

"Am I?" Yozak inquires with calm satisfaction. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

Wolfram gives him a look he can't decipher before running off.

On the courtyard are Conrad and his party, having just returned. Seeing a ruffled golden head speeding towards him, the brunette smiles – Wolfram coming to see him like this usually ends with Conrad carrying an armful of soft-warm-bony blond to bed.

Today, however, his little brother stops stiffly a foot or so away from him. Something's wrong, that much is clearly apparent, but what and just how terribly doesn't dawn on him until Wolfram says, "Yozak claims that you're a half-blood. Tell him to stop slandering you."

It is as though the sky freezes and cracks and falls down over his head. "I will," he hears himself replying numbly. That's no one's bloody business, though he understands, so achingly well, what might have prompted the betrayal. He can't lose Wolfram, though, that one thing he will not give up for anything.

Next second the blond has bridged the gap between them, arms around Conrad's neck, face soft and smiling just inches from the brunette's own. He doesn't understand how any sort of honesty or virtue can make him say, just before Wolfram kisses him, "It's true, though. I am half human."

Green eyes are wide and glossy and frantic for just a moment, thin pale hands a lead weight on Conrad's shoulders. "How could you?" Wolfram finally hisses, ripping himself away, movements clumsy with anger and hysteria. "You're my _brother_. How _could_ you?"

"Because I was so afraid that you'd turn away from me."

Thirty of his soldiers and probably the approaching Gunter as well hear him, and that doesn't matter at all.

Wolfram is already running away.

Conrad's left broken and empty in a land of cold dark shadows. If he can't keep his smile on he'll never be able to stop crying.

It's over, just like that. Wolfram doesn't speak to or approach him, nor he Wolfram.

Conrad decides he doesn't care. And certainly it's true that he doesn't care about anything else in this world or any other.

Wolfram was all that ever mattered, and bereft of him Conrad's an unfilled vessel.

So he goes to war, because it's what he ought to do and he hasn't got anything to lose. There is Yozak and there is Julia, but neither of them matters half so much as the flowers sent from Blood Pledge Castle, the Conrad Stands Upon the Earth picked by the hands of Beautiful Wolfram.

Yozak is as _real_ as Wolfram, but Yozak's plain, on Conrad's own level or lower. There's nothing sacred or miraculous about his strong steady grip on life and comradeship.

Julia is fey and ethereal as Wolfram, but completely lacks his vividness, his overwhelming _presence_. She's the moon to Wolfram's sun, a cold bleak reflection of what he really needs.

Then she dies and he's left with absolutely nothing, not even the crumbs.

He devotes himself completely to duty, the sole thing left that he can hang on to, maybe one day hang himself in. He'll follow the Original King, and he'll be a faithful underling to the new Maou, this Yuuri. Conrad will live for the dark-haired boy if it kills him.

Meanwhile Wolfram is occupied with his self-imposed quest of becoming Conrad; if he can't have him, he'll at least have this reflection.

It doesn't work, though. He's Wolfram and no Conrad and so fails, sometimes just by a little, sometimes spectacularly. They are both unhappy, Conrad in a passive and endless fashion because it was only for and with Wolfram that his emotions truly came alive; Wolfram actively and aggressively because it was only with Conrad that he was content enough to be comfortable calm.

Then Yuuri's hand meets Wolfram's cheek during dinner, and the next day Wolfram has lost a duel and they're engaged. Nobody involved can quite believe it.

Rather abruptly, and with distinct bitterness, Wolfram decides to love Yuuri. He doesn't, but he's stubborn enough to work on it, throwing himself gracelessly against the Maou's barriers and his own.

Eventually Greta appears, and Wolfram locks himself up and cries. Normally he isn't one for tears, preferring to went his frustrations through anger, but he's been doing that so much during the last years that it isn't very effective anymore, and right now everything hurts.

He cares for Greta. It is very possible that he will grow to love her. She's pure human. That makes it much clearer than Wolfram has ever wanted it to be that he does not hate Conrad's being human even a tenth as much as he hates Conrad not trusting him enough to tell him about his unfortunate condition.

He cries until his eyes feel all raw because of that implied betrayal.

Yuuri just plain is not interested in him, and though he would of course never _seriously_ consider such a disgraceful course of action, the idea has fluttered through his mind of going to bed with someone else, presumably one of the pathetically low-ranked but acceptably pretty soldiers who are all entertaining this enormous, half-collective crush on him. The greatest discouragement is his uncertainty as to which name he'd drown in the nameless man's mouth.

Because he should love Yuuri, and he _tries_. He does everything he can think of to manifest this desired emotion, occasionally even fleetingly manages to convince himself that he does love the boy king.

Soon enough it always passes, and he's left feeling empty and clumsy and rejected.

Being with Conrad was never like this, being with Conrad was love and maybe not easy but natural and – _stop it, he lied to me, I did everything for and with him and he wouldn't be honest with me, did he think I was so ludicrously dependent that I'd accept that? Wasn't I worth his time to be truthful with? Couldn't he trust me? Wasn't it plain that I love him?_

And there he catches himself sharply because, whoa, that last verb was supposed to be in the past tense, wasn't it?

Leading the death-in-life that he does, Conrad sees no reason to mind, much less argue with, the order from the Original King that sends him to Belal. Whatever else he might (not) feel aside, it should pain him to betray those he cares for, to serve a beast like the king of Big Shimaron, but in ways it's actually easier like this – his relationships with both sides are suddenly beautifully simple. The betrayal this time is cleaner, somehow, because he doesn't have to continue to live with those he has betrayed, and his simmering frustration over being a mindless warrior is righteous when the one he answers to is a swine like Belal.

Back home in Shin Makoku, in a small castle on the very edge of the country, the situation is less pleasant – chaos and despair sum up the general state of affairs after Conrad's unexpected shift of loyalties.

"This is not acceptable," Gwendal summaries grimly when they are all assembled in his office, when panic has raged so long that it's dying away in exhaustion. "We need Conrad, and if he is indeed the carrier of a Key, then he must be our top priority."

And everyone knows, though no one says, that if Gwendal knew how to accomplish this, it would be done already.

Gunter, the one least personally upset, stares serenely out the window, Celi and Yozak look fixedly at the floor with angry, tried guilt on their faces – whether they feel most betrayed or guilty is anyone's guess.

Yuuri is sitting curled up, chewing on his lower lip. Even Wolfram is calm for once, standing with his back leaning against the wall as though apart from the rest of them.

Then Murata says, breaking the quiet with the voice of the Great Sage: "So we must get him back. We've established that. We also don't know how. I should think, however, that we have something to offer him in return."

Everyone's gazes flicker to Wolfram save Murata's own cold and Yuuri's perplexed one.

For a moment or two the blond looks absent-minded, then shocked, then dismayed. "Are you telling me to go whore for you?" he demands with venom and less than honest-sounding incredulity.

"Wolfram." Gwendal cuts him off. "Our kingdom, the _world_, is in a crisis. You're a soldier and have duties. Can you do it?"

"Yes," Wolfram replies, still with anger painted over his features but with absolute conviction. He turns to Yuuri, intensity in his expression. "Shall I, King?"

Brow furrowed in concentration and puzzlement, Yuuri can only reply, "What? If you should go bring Conrad back? Of course! You can do that? Oh, why haven't you before? Wolfram, please, of course we need to get him back!"

"Yes."

"Good," Gwendal summarizes. "Wolfram, ready yourself. Yozak, have them prepare horses so that you might escort him to the location as fast as he's finished."

Yuuri is frustratingly clueless, but too filled with disbelieving joy at the prospect that _Conrad's coming back!_ to overly mind. In curiosity he follows Celi as she sweeps after Wolfram, past the stricken-looking Yozak biting viciously at his lower lip.

"No farther, Majesty," Celi smiles at him as they reach her quarters, shutting the door in his face. Nonplussed, Yuuri remains standing outside, soon joined by most of the others. Murata, Gwendal and Gunter carry expressions of grim relief, whereas Yozak only looks grim.

A little less than an hour lately Wolfram and his mother emerges, two wonders of blond beauty. For the first time, Wolfram even more than his mother demands drooling staring. Some kind of mystical sparkly softness smoothes his naturally lovely but normally sharp features into a vision of beauty, and the obviously newly-washed golden hair and the frilly turquoise nightgown do nothing to dispel the angelic impression. If Wolfram were a girl Yuuri would have been rendered a stumbling, blushing idiot by the mere scent that clings to him, a perfume like apples and spring and honey.

"Ready?" Yozak asks, and at Wolfram's affirmative they all proceed to the stables on the courtyard. Yuuri trips over his own feet and realizes he's blushing.

"Kinda dressed up for a ride, aren't you," Yozak mutters under his breath. "Conrad's always been artless. Including looks."

"You'd think you'd have managed to score with him if that were what he preferred," Wolfram retorts as the half-human lifts him into the saddle. Normally he would have protested the treatment furiously, but if he were to jump astride the horse he'd rip the skirt. "My brother loves beautiful things."

_So you're sort of out of luck, aren't you?_

It's petty to insult the loser when you've already won, but it is rather a satisfaction to see Yozak's false grin crumble, sour.

Which doesn't mean that he doesn't forget all about it as they take off, forgets all about everything that isn't him and Conrad. Half an hour later they take cover in the fringe of the forest flanking the camp. Roughly pulling the hood of the dark cloak up to cover von Bielefeld's beacon-bright hair, Yozak shoots the boy a sharp glance that actually succeeds in making the brat's protest stay unspoken and grabs the small, warm hand in his own to lead the way into the camp.

They are unbelievably fortunate that Conrad prefers to have his little private commander's tent set up a good distance from the middle of the army, out on the edges where supervision is loose. It helps, Yozak grudgingly admits, that Wolfram is fast and silent on his feet. Who'd have thought the loud, rambling git could actually be quiet for more than five seconds flat?

In the shadows cast by what appears to be a tool shackle they stop, Yozak glancing around the edge of the building while Wolfram frees himself from the cloak. He's far too noticeable without it, skin and gown and hair all bright, but it's not far to the tent and Yozak will have time to kill anyone who might spot him. Then von Bielefeld slips past and away, like his hopes or the morning mist.

Conrad is sitting half-clothed on his bed, examining his sword for injuries, when someone lifts the tent-fabric. Disbelieving, caught between amused and annoyed, Conrad watches a slender hand push the cloth away – feels his blood boil and dissipate as an impossible blond head enters, followed by an equally unlikely face and body. Years have passed since he last laid eyes on a thin turquoise nightdress, but sensory memory has not declined. Drawing a deep though mercifully silent breath he watches Wolfram stare steadily at him as he points the tip of his sword at the blond's throat, the edge just short of scraping skin. Warm, tight, silken skin.

"This how you usually treat your guests?" Wolfram says at length, tone so light it ought to jar but doesn't.

"What are you doing here?" His own voice is cold, just the barest shade husky. The blond has denied him many things, but rarely the truth.

"Seeing you. I had thought that would be rather obvious."

"Why? Don't tell me you let them send you out to woe me back?" Wolfram's lack of denial is startling and unpleasant, despite that there's scarcely an overabundance of other reasons with which to explain his presence. "Playing pimp, are they, our brother and his king."

"No, not really. I was asked whether I was capable of doing this. You know I've never been much of an actor."

"You're saying you're here because you love me?"

"That's right."

The words make him dizzy, enough so that the sword shakes in his hand. Movement fast and steady Wolfram grabs the blade and takes it from him, puts it safely down on the floor.

_Come for love._ Of course there are additional reasons, something to have worked as a trigger, but they're standing a breath from each other and are here because of love.

Forget the Original King and the current one, forget duty and honor and betrothals. Life is back in him, he greedily grabs for it, and it melts against him, bright and hot and honey.

xxxxx


End file.
